


No One More Important Than You

by CD (thecollective)



Series: Captain Canada and the Russian Alternate [9]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Other, Russian Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 04:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10325633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecollective/pseuds/CD
Summary: He doesn’t watch the All-Star Game.





	

He doesn’t watch the All-Star Game. Zhenya’s in Pittsburgh to rehab while Sidney is in Los Angeles and he stubbornly refuses to watch the competition in which his boyfriend and also a number of his friends are having fun and goofing off together in the sunny clime of Southern California. Instead, Zhenya sleeps in, jerks off, reads a book. He lies in bed for two hours pretending, for no one’s benefit but his own, to take a nap even though he woke up only a few hours before. He doesn’t watch the competition, instead obsessing over the internet and his phone, gobbling up highlights and tweets until the second game is over. Metro, of course, wins, and Sidney gets his first All-Star game goal, and so Zhenya turns the television back on to watch the postgame interviews, trying not to ache at the sight of Sidney obviously enjoying himself in spite of the fact that Zhenya isn’t there with him.  Sid is _his_ team mate. _His_ captain. It’s stupid, Zhenya knows it’s stupid, but that doesn’t stop the jealousy churning in his stomach when he sees Sidney and Sasha in picture after picture, smiling, laughing, standing too close because they’ve been friends with each other and with Zhenya for a very long time and definitely not because they’re fucking. They’re not, of course they’re not.

_But still._

They’d been planning their trip to Los Angeles together for weeks. Zhenya had been looking forward to a mini vacation for just the two of them, with Anna and Niki in Miami for two weeks and their teammates scattered across the continent, if only for a few precious days. The All-Star Game was going to be _their_ thing this year, the first year since he was a rookie that Sid actively planned to make it, and then Zhenya had to go and get himself injured. Suddenly, four days of eating at Sid’s favorite restaurants and geeking out about hockey history had turned into Zhenya, alone in Pittsburgh with a busted knee while half of his friends were spending time with their loved ones somewhere exotic and the other half were at the All-Star Game in Los Angeles, spending time with _his_ loved one.

“I need you to watch out for Sidney in Los Angeles,” Zhenya had told Sasha that first night of his injury, when he’d been benched against Nashville and couldn’t even enjoy beating Lazy’s team fair and square in regulation.

“You know you’re talking about the best hockey player in the world? The most recognizable face outside of Wayne Gretzy when it comes to hockey? Inducted into the top 100 without question. Why would a thirty-year old man, especially _this_ thirty-year old man, need me to take care of him, Zhenya? You’re too protective of that boy,” Sasha added, a hint of amusement in his voice and sounding too much like both of their mothers to be accidental.

“Not take care of,” Zhenya amended. “Just stay with him, when you can. He can get,” Zhenya had paused, unsure of how to explain the gentle, introverted nature of Sidney to Sasha, his articulate and confident friend. Sasha, who thrives on attention and can assert himself in almost any situation, on or off the ice. For Sidney, shmoozing and mingling with strangers can be draining and, although Nate, Mario and his Team Canada lineys will be there, Sidney sometimes needs someone to veer him off into a quiet corner and tell him to breathe before he burns out. “Overwhelmed. He gets overwhelmed, Sasha. With all the people and the cameras, he’s going to need a Russian mother hen. If I’m not there, I know you’re the second best man for the job,” Zhenya finished to Sasha’s soft laughter.

  
“Zhenya, how in the world do you three make it work?” Sasha had asked finally, after agreeing not to ditch Sidney for better prospects at the All-Star Game.

“Best not to ask questions you don’t really want to know the answer to, old friend,” Zhenya had huffed.

“Oh god, you are right, I really do not want to know,” Sasha had grumbled into the phone before begging off, leaving Zhenya to sit and watch as Anna, Niki, then Sidney and the rest of the team packed up and got ready to spend the All-Star break elsewhere, while Zhenya made appointments with his trainer and doctor for an intensive few days of rehabilitation.

When Sidney calls him the night the NHL announces the top 100 players, it is to apologize, on the behalf of the National Hockey League apparently, for leaving Zhenya off the list. It hadn’t been a shock, the players who had made the list were told weeks ahead of time in order to make sure they would attend the ceremony. What does shock Zhenya, though, is the outpouring of love and support he receives after being snubbed. Not just fans, but the Penguins organization and many of his hockey friends call, text or email to tell him the list is flawed and that he should have made it.

 **Three Blackhawks? Really?** Kulya texts him when the show is over. **Stupid**.

 **Don’t care. Sidney made it, that’s good enough for me.** Zhenya replies.

 **Still Stupid.** Kulya responds, and Zhenya really does love his friends.

Sidney, though, is quietly pleased with his own inclusion, while indignant over Zhenya’s exclusion. He rants about Zhenya’s goal number being higher than Toews and _Jonny is a good guy, but how does he get on the list and you don’t_ until Zhenya interrupts him to ask what he’s wearing and what he drank that night and the conversation gets derailed into something a little dirty and a lot more fun for both of them.

The day of the skills competition, Sasha texts and finally calls to bitch about Sidney. He asks about Sidney’s revised All-Star game day routines (nap, PB&J, cardio, ignoring the press) and gives Zhenya detailed information about the way Sidney pretty much third-wheels Sasha and Nastya all of Friday and Saturday when they are practically still newlyweds and were actually looking forward to a weekend away together.

“Think I wanted to be stuck at home in the snow while you assholes enjoy the seventy-degree weather of L.A.? Me and Sid were supposed to be enjoying a weekend away before things start getting crazy and difficult here before the playoff push, you know that. Think I want to be nursing a bum knee and thinking about retirement while you…?” Sasha doesn’t even let him finish before he’s murmuring reassurances in Russian that Zhenya would feel guilty coaxing out of his friend if he didn’t need them so much.

***

He’s out for three more weeks. Anna comes back from Miami, Sid comes back from the All-Star Game, and Zhenya still can’t even skate. Even though his team wins more than it loses, he can’t help feeling responsible for the losses and guiltily jealous of the wins. As soon as the doctors clear him to for travel, he hops on a plane with his team, going to Denver and Arizona and watching a win and a loss from the press box, wearing his game day suit even though he doesn’t get to play in the game. Not playing is frustrating, infuriating and all those English words he has to swallow and pretend not to know when reporters push into his stall to ask him when he’ll be back on the ice.

It’s good to be back with the team, and even better when he can shed the no-contact jersey in practice and really start hitting the ice. He’s still not one hundred percent, but Zhenya knows he’ll be playing soon, he can feel it in his rickety, thirty-year old bones. Zhenya watches as Sasha gets to one thousand points, with Sidney quietly, only three points behind him. While the Capitals go all out, with Ovechkin Big Heads on all the stadium seats and a Snapchat filter celebrating Ovi-day in Washington, Sidney doesn’t want the fanfair. He shrugs off questions about the accomplishment, and creeps slowly toward one thousand in seven long games, waiting, it seems, until Zhenya returns to get the last two points. It’s ridiculous and so perfectly Sidney, that Zhenya isn’t even surprised when they score on the Power Play and he gets the apple on a sweet one hander that Sid knocks in from the face-off circle. With his perfectly shaven face, smooth since Denver, Sid grabs a bouncing puck that Zhenya snaps at Kuni and slaps it passed Hellebuyck, and the home crowd goes wild.

"We did it!" Sidney yells over the roar of the crowd, and, of course he does. In post-game interviews, he attributes the 1000 points to the men on his line, the team that he plays with. He is selfless and sweet and Zhenya vows silently to do something special for him, and settles for a blow job in the parking lot until he can think of something better. 

 _Better_ comes when management has the idea of the golden stick. The Capitals did something similar for Sasha on the ice, on television, in front of thousands of people but everyone knows Sidney wouldn't like all the attention, and so they give it to him the the comfort of their own locker room. Actually, Zhenya gives it to him, and the moment is electric. With Kuni, Tanger, Flower and the boys surrounding them, Zhenya hands Sidney a golden stick marking the occasion of every single one of his goals and tries his best not to cry while Sid hugs each of the guys. 

"Hey, I want a hug, too!" Zhenya squawks when it looks like Sid is going to pass him up. Sidney smiles, pulls Zhenya close and whispers in his ear words of endearment and thanks, for just the two of them, and the moment, somehow, feels even more important. 

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this in my "S/G Unfinished fics" piece as Ch3, but I figured if you are a subscriber/fan of this series, you might want to be able to easily find this snippet, set in the "Captain Canada and the Russian Alternate" verse. If you like it, let me know in the comments below or with a kudos )))


End file.
